


An Eight Hour Playlist

by kieranwalker



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 21:50:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11216961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kieranwalker/pseuds/kieranwalker
Summary: Every day the guy two cubicles down comes in, boots up his computer, and plays his bad music for eight hours. 9-5 Mon-Fri. Eduardo doesn't really know what to make of it.





	An Eight Hour Playlist

Eduardo’s been trying to cut meat out of his diet. This is what he’s thinking about as he goes into work that morning, numbly driving, parking his car, riding the elevator, and plunking down in his cubicle. As he boots up his computer he’s not thinking about bacon, and as he begins typing away he’s definitely not hungry.

At nine a.m., more people start to trickle in. Eduardo always gets in at 8:30 to try and beat some of the traffic, but most people come in later. At nine o’clock exactly, the guy two cubicles down starts playing music.

Eduardo doesn’t mind—he’s not the type to get bothered by his coworkers and besides, the music is pretty quiet. He even catches himself nodding his head to the mellow beats. It even takes his mind off—nope, he’s not thinking about it.

At lunch, the music still hasn’t stopped. He and the guy in the cubicle adjacent to his talk about it at lunch. The guy says it’s weird, but Eduardo maintains that he likes it. Even if it is going on three hours of solid listening. It’s not like its bad music—though, admittedly, he can’t really hear much of it. The guy tells him that’s a blessing, Eduardo forces a laugh.

They resume the awkward silence that normally permeates their lunch discussions, neither of them knowing enough about the other to hold a conversation, but both bound by the rule of acquaintanceship. Eduardo thinks about another five years of doing this and shudders.

He tells the guy about his new diet and the guy looks at him like he’s an idiot. Really, he just looks like he doesn’t care, but that leaves his face blank enough for Eduardo to make up reactions for himself. Eventually Eduardo stops trying to talk to the guy and resumes eating his soy nuts at his computer alone, stuffing them in his mouth two at a time.

At one o’clock, Eduardo is restless. He’s been sitting for four hours now and the weirdo is still playing his music. He decides he’s going to go see what’s up. He gets past his neighbor’s desk when he freezes. Oh no. He knows this song. “What’s New Pussycat” by Tom Jones. Has this been the music he’s been listening to all day? Oh, god. He turns on his heel, wanting to put some distance between him and it. His neighbor’s staring at him, fully turned around in his chair and leaning back. He says that he told Eduardo it was bad and looks gleeful, and this time Eduardo is definitely not inventing the sadistically happy expression on his face. His neighbor’s a jerk.

Back in his cubicle, the music doesn’t fade. It’s as if now he’s heard it once, he’s doomed to hear it for all time. Now he can pick out the melodies and words as if it’s a curse. Eduardo doesn’t listen to the radio much, but that doesn’t save him since this guy is playing old songs. Irritating ones. It’s gotten to the point where the ad breaks are a release and the silence of the crossfade is sweet relief.

By 3:30, Eduardo’s convinced it’s a joke. He marches down to the guy’s cubicle, determined to be polite but persuasive, and not to be rude or an ass. He’s got a reputation to uphold around here, anyway.

The guy looks just as annoying as his music taste and Eduardo feels a surge of confidence. This guy’s going to cave no problem; his face practically screams pushover.

“Hey,” Eduardo starts, getting the guy’s attention. He swivels around and just stares at Eduardo, not replying. Weird, but okay.

He spots the playlist behind him in the corner of his screen currently rapping “Make it Rain,” but Eduardo, unfortunately, already knew that.

He grits his teeth and plunges forward. “Do you think you could cut it with the music man?” He tries to look friendly while making his asshole request, just like his father taught him: straight back, squared shoulders, and you could ask the President to invest in your M&M construction.

The guy just looks at him, takes a piece of licorice from the package on his desk, and says simply, “No.”

Well. “Alright, man, I don’t want to interrupt your working process, but maybe you could…pick better songs? What’s in “Make it Rain” that motivates you anyway?”

“The lyrics. They relate deeply to my daily life,” he deadpans. Eduardo looks around at the gray walls of his cubicle, the documents up on his screen, and the frays on the seat of his chair and tries to reconcile it with “gotta handful of stacks, better grab an umbrella” without laughing. This guy is rude in the best way, he decides, and leaves him be. It’s kind of funny now. His neighbor groans when the current annoying song rolls into the next and he chuckles to himself a little. Maybe it’s worth it.

At five o’clock exactly, the playlist stops. There is no sequel to “Tainted Love.” Eduardo hears the guy get up, pack up his stuff and leave. And that’s that.

His neighbor leans over and says that if the dude tries that tomorrow he’s going to force the guy to delete his Spotify. Eduardo just tells him to go home and feed his cats.

The next day at 8:59, the guy comes in, sets up, at the second it turns to 9:00, starts up his first song. Eduardo stares hard at the wall of his cubicle and tries to endure it. He can hear his neighbor snapping paper clips and grinding his teeth next door and Eduardo hopes to god the music guy is doing this just to grind his neighbor’s gears.

All day they’re treated to Katy Perry, the Spice Girls, and terrible remixes of memes. At least the playlist is different today, Eduardo decides around midmorning, otherwise he might go insane.

Around midafternoon, he finds that he wants to talk to the guy some more. What would make a man want to listen to eight hours of bad pop?

He asks the guy this with no preamble, while leaning against his cubicle and playing with his cufflink. The guy starts in the middle of eating his sandwich, looking at Eduardo like he’s intruding. Eduardo feels bad for a moment and then notices the guy’s scarfing down what looks to be a pickle and cheese sandwich and is overwhelmed by wonder. He’s starting to become an enigma.

The guy frowns after a moment and replies, “My true passion is Norweigan rap. Buy my mixtape.” He turns around to go back to work, clearly dismissing Eduardo.

But he’s persistent. “That’s not an answer.”

“That was a dumb question.” He doesn’t look up.

“Why is it dumb?”

“Because,” the guy says in a long-suffering tone, pushing back from his desk and looking up at Eduardo. Clear condescension lights up his eyes. “It doesn’t matter why I play the music. The music is just the background noise. Like your voice. It’s just there, and if it weren’t there, there’d be silence, which is better. So, I don’t want to play the music, but I must, because that guy,” he points to Eduardo’s neighbor, “tripped me when I came in on my first day, poured out my coffee on Tuesday, and he’s behind on his alimony payments, yet he goes on posting on Facebook that his life is amazing, sweet, a blast. So I play the music for him, because I hate him, because I’m that stupid and petty. Why do you care?”

He punctuates that by swiveling around in his chair and resuming typing on his computer. Eduardo’s mouth hangs open.

The guy adds one more thing: “Oh, and he’s further behind on his alimony now thanks to yours truly, but he doesn’t realize it because he doesn’t check.” The guy huffs out a strange sound that Eduardo realizes is a laugh.

Eduardo’s trying to collect his thoughts. “That’s kind of an asshole th—”

“Nope, he’s a neglectful father.”

“Ah,” Eduardo doesn’t know what to say. He tries to judge this guy, but finds he doesn’t really care. He stopped being morally pure years ago, and figures this isn’t the worst thing he’s seen in a while. And it’s mostly just funny to mess with a jerk. “So why no rap then?”

“Wouldn’t piss him off as much. Look at this,” the guy gestures to the screen. “On his Facebook, his top three dislikes are pineapple, clowns, and pop artists from the 90s and 00s.”

“Are hacked into his Facebook?” Eduardo squawks.

The guy shrugs. “Yeah.”

Eduardo smiles a slow smile. “Want to get drinks later?”

The guy cracks a smile himself. Eduardo realizes it’s the first time he’s seen him do it. “Sorry,” he smiles ruefully. “Can’t. I gotta go straight home and prepare tomorrow’s playlist. No rest for the wicked.” They both laugh and if Eduardo catches his neighbor glaring at them out of the corner of his eye, it only makes him feel better.

He learns the guy’s name is Mark and they shoot the breeze for a while to the sounds of High School Musical. The next day, Eduardo stops by his cubicle again at four and they talk down the last hour of the day, which Mark believes is asshole time. On Monday, it only seems natural to do it again. If they start arguing over track listings on Tuesday, then it’s nobody’s business.

One day Eduardo rolls in at 8:55. He logs onto his computer, brings up his Spotify, and starts his own playlist. He swivels his chair around, looking smug, laughing at Mark’s indignant face. He shrugs his shoulders to say that Mark doesn’t have exclusive office music rights.

The first song rolls into “My Heart Will Go On” by someone. The next one’s the same sappy, melodramatic tone, and the next. They’re all love songs, of course. When Eduardo checks, Mark’s laughing his ass off to Céline Dion croons in the office. Periodic grumbles from his neighbor’s desk make it so much sweeter.

But around noontime, Mark’s pulls out his trump card. With Eduardo’s playlist still going, he joins it with his mix of Norwegian and various other Nordic raps. It becomes a cacophony of beats and voices in the office, sure to piss off anyone within earshot. It goes on for fourteen minutes before their boss starts shouting for them to turn it off. Giggling like teenagers, they do.

At four o’clock, Eduardo makes his way over to Mark’s desk. “Hey man,” he says, “Want to grab a drink after work?”

He catches Mark’s eye and there’s no ambiguity about what he means. After a second, Mark breaks into a smile and Eduardo thinks it’s the most beautiful thing. At five-oh-one exactly, they grab their coats and head for the bar next door.

“Hey, did I tell you I’m trying to cut meat out of my diet?” Eduardo says as they walk. Conversation comes easy with Mark. He doesn’t always say much, but Eduardo doesn’t mind. That’s just how he is.

“Oh? Tell me about it.” 

“It’s going really well.”

**Author's Note:**

> this was written on my work computer so its original title was "revised purchasing policy"


End file.
